Tag Archives: grim and gritty

This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.

This is video another entry in my ongoing “Jack’s Comic Gems” collection. And for this gem, I re-visit one of the darkest, grittiest gems from the early 2000s. A lot has been made in recent years about Frank Castle and the iconography of the Punisher, largely due to toxic politics and creative failures.

But in the early 2000s, Garth Ennis gave us the greatest iteration of the modern Punisher with the Punisher MAX series. This was Frank Castle as his best and most brutal. If that era had a high point, it was the Mother Russia arc. It’s a true gem from a different era of Marvel.

It’s a gem from a different world, in general. But even with everything that has changed around us, this story showed us just how brutal and compelling a Punisher comic can be. Enjoy!